My name is Nick Hines. I am a secondary school teacher. I was originally from Minnesota and had the opportunity to complete my training in Ireland in the early 2000s, but in that placement I met my wife Tracy and we got married a year later.
It was now 22 years ago and I have two grown sons and a teenage daughter.
Time is funny, 22 years looks good in some respects, but when you say your time is passing, it seems like a flash. I'm here because I received my heart from the organ donor. I would like to share a bit about how I came to request this amazing gift and how it changed my relationship with time.
Growing up in Minnesota, I was always active, playing winter skating and ice hockey, swimming and playing baseball and basketball in the summer. When I got older and moved to Ireland and started my family, I didn't get too late, I continued playing basketball, hiking and running.
In February 2020, out of nowhere, I suffered a mild stroke and brought me to the hospital. There, many tests discovered heart failure. I was treated with medication and a defibrillator was attached as a backstop. Within a year of getting my ICD, I was dropped from my chair at the dinner table on a Sunday afternoon in front of my wife and daughter, and there were zero warnings and signs that this was coming.
The thing is that my heart failure was asymptomatic and its function was declining within it, but I and the world were fine. My other system was on overdrive and compensated and adapted for low power output from my heart. Living with the knowledge that I can leave everything without warning had a huge impact on me and my family. I lived there three of us
I've been with the knowledge that “lugs” can be pulled with a momentary notification.
Every night, I would closely assess the day while trying to sleep, thinking about what it means to be unwake. You have a bad day, you have an argument, you forget to do something, or you forget to tell someone something. When you try to sleep, you may settle on top of you. “Let me get another day, not tonight.”
Then you wake up and the scramble starts to make it good. The photo below.
daughters Molly and Nick at the start of organ donation week.
Ideas for the future and even next month will disappear. The relationship with time changes completely. Inspirational phrases – Live every day to take a blow to every aspect of life when you are your reality in the end. My daughter was 10 years old. This reality was revealed to her and her wife that Sunday afternoon.
In September 2023, I was living three years after that stroke, and I was walking a bottle on the road before school, but couldn't breathe or move.
I remember thinking, this is it. I arrived at A&E that morning. So it was decided that I would no longer be able to live with my native mind, porting was my only hope. I was referred to my mother and called out for an assessment a week later, and they determined that I was ready for a work-up to check eligibility for mental receipt.
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They revealed more and more problems, as they tested me. The plan was listed and called back to work and life and when the appropriate donor came. As I was eligible, I began to consider going home with my loved one before I died.
My doctors have planned and implemented strategies that would be fully and proactive in my mind so that I could be on the list and stay on the list.
I stayed in CCU Matter with the best care until the offer came. It's like I woke up to the coordinator and told me I had a donor, the surgeon later arrived and asked me, do you know what's going on? I said I did it, but in reality I didn't know.
What does this mean to me and my family?
I've now spent a year with my port. I'm not only alive, I'm alive. The thoughts of time and tomorrow, and the wonders of how my children will continue in this world are emotions that I can think of now. concern,
Joy and hope are something I can really share right now.
In this new life, I tried to calculate the amount of contributors – to make this time free. Nurses, caregivers, nutritionists, cleaners, psychologists, doctors, surgeons, physics, secretaries, coordinators, over 300 people
Experts who had such compassion and commitment to their work have mostly positive memories of my transplant process.
However, without one person's selfless behavior, that means nothing. My donor and their families.
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Well, when I had a bad day, I would like to thank my donors and family that I have time to heal it, and when the day is good, I would like to thank my donors and family for joy.
I would like to thank the Irish Heart and Lung Transplant Association and the Irish Kidney Association for welcoming me here today to share my journey.
For more information on how to read the photos below, see details.
Nick spoke to him at Organdonor Awareness Week 2025 (May 10-17), officially launched at Mansion House in Dublin on Tuesday, May 6th, calling for powerful national action, saying, “Don't question your loved one.”
With support from the Irish Kidney Association (IKA) from the office of HSE's Organ Donation Transplant Ireland (ODTI), the campaign highlights the life-changing impact of organ donation on transplants and the role families play in ensuring your wishes. www.ika.ie/donorweek/
Currently, over 600 people have adopted a waiting list for transplants for organs such as the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and pancreas, with over 500 of them waiting for a kidney transplant alone, making the need for a nationwide conversation about organ donation more urgent than ever.
Lots more here
